Welcome to the blog of actress, writer, and storyteller, Bernadette Nason!

Friday, November 22, 2013

R.I.P. DOOBEY

R.I.P. MISS DUBUISSON a.k.a. DOOBEY, DOOBS, THE
DOOBSTER

As Austin's weather changes
from autumn to winter; as freezing rain drips from the gutters and "that
old north wind" blows the yellow leaves from our Texas ash, we mourn the
tragic loss of Doobey, our precious black-and-white cat who died last night
after a wild animal attack.

She was buried this morning
in our pet plot at the bottom of the back yard with her white catnip mouse, her
knotty, psychedelic, drool-encrusted charmer, and a little mint-scented catnip
"for the road."Doobey was a
dear, sweet animal who brought peace to everyone in this life; may she find it
now in her next life with her shadow companions, the boys, Brother Mercury,
Brother Minx, and the ashes of Brother Jaffa.

She is survived by Gris-gris
and Possum who grieve today, seemingly sincere, along with their humans, at
this sudden bereavement.We are all
broken-hearted.

As Doobey was a "pound
cat," we knew little about her when we chose her nearly ten years ago.She was not photogenic -- her website picture
suggested she might be a gang member -- but her charm on first meeting was
irresistible.She was about six years-old
and had been in the shelter for a while (probably because of that photo.)A homeless man had found and handed her in
and it was thought she'd been abused because she was skittish and terribly timid.Despite this, she liked to play and adored tummy
rubs, habits which she retained until the end.

Doobey spent her first week
under our bed, a refuge she took frequently over the years.She gave the impression that she didn't enjoy
attention but once the barrier was broken, was forceful, nay, demanding in her
quest for strokes, splaying herself before you, legs akimbo, so that
"no" wasn't an option.She
liked nothing better than to be brushed vigorously with a stiff brush for half-an-hour
at a time.She wasn't really a lap cat
but when the weather was cold and she selected you from a roomful of people, her
unique method of "lap-sitting" involved wedging herself between your
thighs and gripping with claws fully extended.This was a painful exercise.She
had long claws.We will miss her claws.

We'll miss her drinking out
of a mud-filled birdbath instead of her bowl of fresh water. We'll miss her funny, waddling walk which
didn't stop her catching a bird from the air.We'll miss her choosing only clean towels and sheets to sleep on, and
springing out of the linen closet like a jack-in-the-box.We'll miss her black-and-white furriness on
the black-and-white rug, so perfectly camouflaged that she could catapult a
grown man across the room. It wasn't
deliberate; she wasn't that kind of cat.

Doobey was a back porch
cat.We believe that cats, even pets,
are essentially wild animals.We've always
given ours the option to be "inside" or "outside" or a combination
thereof.Some may judge us for this -- our
vet was always irritated -- but Doobey hated to be indoors for long.She loved the outdoors, particularly the back
porch, and though it proved to be her undoing, she lived contentedly, even blissfully,
when the weather was good, on that porch for ten years.Oh, how we'll miss her presence at the back
door, insisting on an open door but opting not to enter!

We thank her for nurturing Jaffa during his short
life; and for nurturing (read, tolerating) Possum, and teaching him some
manners.Just yesterday, he jumped on
her back and knocked her over...she just licked his ear and walked away.That's the kind of cat she was.

We thank God, the Universe
and Suchness for bringing her gentle spirit into our lives.May that spirit always live within and around
us.

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My mum (in England) and I (wherever I happened to be living) used to write each other every week...snail-mail letters, of course. When we both got computers and email became popular, we wrote every day...about everything, from the weather to what our neighbors were doing, from the political situation to popular shows on the telly. When she died, not only did I miss my lovely mum, I missed our regular written conversations; and I lost my daily writing fix. Now I admit the messages were sometimes ridiculously banal but they were often hilarious and always fun to receive. So to start with at least, I'm going to imagine my blog is a note to my mum in the hope that you'll like reading it as much I liked reading her notes to me.